AUSTIN, Texas—Shirley Bird Perry, who announced in June her plans to retire as vice chancellor for development and external relations at the University of Texas System, will join The University of Texas at Austin as senior vice president next April 1.
Perry, who has served more than 40 years with the UT System and The University of Texas at Austin, will hold a half-time position, Larry R. Faulkner, president of The University of Texas at Austin, said in announcing the appointment.
“Shirley Bird Perry has an encyclopedic knowledge of Texas and can bring great value to our efforts to reach out to people and communities across the state,” Faulkner said. “It is our good fortune that she can rejoin the university toward that end. I look forward very much to working with her.”
Perry will be responsible, Faulkner said, for overseeing the president’s fund-raising efforts and maintaining momentum in contacts with potential donors, coordinating the president’s program of community visits around the state, working with the university’s Center for American History to create a better historical record of the university’s life.
“ I am enormously pleased to rejoin The University of Texas at Austin administrative team,” Perry said, “and I am honored to have this extraordinary opportunity to serve President Faulkner and the institution.”
As a senior vice president, Perry will be a member of the Vice Presidents’ Council and the University Leadership Council at the university.
Perry has served as vice chancellor for development and external relations with the UT System since 1992. In that position she has directed fund-raising operations, public affairs activities, management of estates and trusts, event planning and other activities.
Before joining the staff of the UT System, she had been vice president for development and university relations at The University of Texas at Austin under Presidents Peter T. Flawn and William H. Cunningham. Earlier, Flawn had appointed her as assistant to the president and coordinator of the university centennial observance, which culminated in 1983. Perry was promoted to vice president and coordinator of centennial programs in 1981.
Perry served as director of the Texas Union from 1972 to 1976. She began at the Texas Union as program director in 1958.
Her service at The University of Texas at Austin was interrupted only twice since then. She was a teacher in California in 1959-60 and was with the Association of College Unions-International from 1976 to 1979.
Perry holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The University of Texas at Austin. She is married to Sam Perry, an Austin attorney.
For more information contact: Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.
